Sexual Satisfaction Rises for Women Using Testosterone Patch-[dotlife:玩]

By David Olmos

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Sex was more satisfying for women who used a testosterone skin patch, a study found.

The trial was sponsored by Procter & Gamble Co., the Cincinnati-based maker of a testosterone patch called Intrinsa that is approved for sale to women in Europe and not in the U.S. More than 800 women who had reported personal distress linked with low desire were recruited for the study.

Previous research showed that women with low sexual desire who were given testosterone combined with estrogen therapy were more inclined to report satisfying sex. Many women have stopped the combination therapy because of studies linking it to cancer, cardiovascular and other risks, so the new study looked at women given testosterone without estrogen.

``The question was whether estrogen was necessary to get the same effects from the testosterone,'' Robin Kroll, director of Women's Clinical Research Center and the Menopause Center in Seattle, said in an interview today. ``We found that it could work,'' even if a woman wasn't on estrogen.

Postmenopausal women with low libido who used the patch had a ``modest but meaningful'' rise in satisfying sexual episodes compared with those on a placebo patch, according to the new research, which will be published in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine. Breast cancer was diagnosed in four women who wore the testosterone patch in the study, compared with none given a placebo patch, a difference the authors said ``may be due to chance'' yet should be studied.

Satisfying Episodes

Researchers analyzed data from 814 women who were given daily doses of 150 micrograms or 300 micrograms of testosterone or a placebo, or dummy, treatment. While both groups on the patch reported increased sexual desire, only those on the higher dose had a statistically significant increase in satisfying sexual episodes, according to the study.

The 300-microgram-dose group reported an increase of 2.1 satisfying sexual episodes per month for each four weeks compared with an average increase of less than one episode for those on placebo, the study found. Levels of free testosterone found in the 300-microgram-dose group were close to those usually seen in women ages 18 to 24 years.

The study included women from the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K. and Sweden, ages 20 to 70 years old, who were postmenopausal for at least a year. It included both women who had gone through natural menopause and those who had gone into menopause after removal of ovaries.

Cancer Cases

Of the four cases of breast cancer in women who wore the testosterone patch, one had symptoms reported retroactively as starting before the treatment. A second case was detected three months after the treatment ended.

Procter & Gamble withdrew application to the Food and Drug Administration to market the Intrinsa patch in the U.S. in December 2004, after the FDA staff said more research was needed to prove the patch wouldn't raise the risk of heart disease and cancer.

``We continue to have discussions with the FDA to determine if there is an appropriate path to market for this product,'' said Tom Millikin, a P&G spokesman, in a telephone interview today.

Some doctors already prescribe testosterone treatment for postmenopausal women with low sex desire, the most common sexual complaint among women, said Kroll. Because there are no U.S.- approved testosterone therapies for women, physicians typically prescribe lower doses of drugs approved for men, such as Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s AndroGel. Some physicians refer patients to compounding pharmacies that develop custom testosterone gels or lotions, she said.

A drawback of the compounds is that they are absorbed into patients' bodies differently, complicating the task of determining dosage, said Glenn Braunstein, an endocrinologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, who was an author of the new study.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Olmos in San Francisco at dolmos@bloomberg.net.

(VIA Sexual Satisfaction Rises for Women Using Testosterone Patch )